


we'll go down into the whirlpool

by trykynyx



Series: reasons much older than silver [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trykynyx/pseuds/trykynyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is an obscenely hot afternoon in the greenhouse and Erica's sweaty and irritated and worried that she's going to have pit stains on her last clean shirt before lunch and of course that's when the shakes come on. She doesn't get much warning, just a bit of a wet tang in her mouth, and then her forearm's flying out and knocking her quarter-of-your-grade potted plant off the work bench. She opens her mouth, most likely to swear because she's spent all summer watching age-inappropriate television, when Vernon Boyd snatches her Herbology grade from the jaws of Troll-dom.</p><p>(Scenes from Slytherin!Allison&Erica's second year, with relevant flashbacks/flashforwards.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll go down into the whirlpool

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the 'verse belong to me. (Also I haven't written real fic in years.)
> 
> Title from "Death Will Stare at Me out of Your Eyes" by Cesare Pavese.

Kate only visits once during the summer and she spends most of the time outlining her plans for the next year. (She's got a scroll titled _Social Domination_ , and Allison thinks she's sharper, harder, than ever.) Grandpa Gerard looks at her like she's everything he ever wanted. Allison's dad avoids the house for the week his father and niece are there. 

When they go, he pulls Allison aside.

"I want you to remember," he says, "That there's more to The Code than loyalty." (Chris Argent always uses capital letters when he talks about the unofficial laws of his bloodline.)

Allison nods, because it's what she's supposed to do. She can't actually remember any other parts of the code of House Argent.

 

\---

 

The train ride's halfway over when Erica slides open the bathroom door and finds herself face-to-clavicle with Cora. Growth spurts are totally unfair.

Erica lifts her head and gives her best irritated-Laura-Hale look. Cora has been the least welcoming Hale by far, rolls her eyes whenever they're in the same room, uses this tone that is deeply unnecessary considering she's only a year and a half older. Still, Laura and Derek weren't always around, and last year she'd occasionally sat uncomfortably at the edge of Cora's crowd of Ravenclaws. Her attempts at conversation were always ignored and Erica always walked away with Cora's apologies for 'her sister's freaky little groupie' ringing in her ears.

So she's not expecting a hug, but she isn't quite prepared for the hostility in Cora's eyes.

"Listen here," the girl hisses and Erica jerks back, almost falls against the sink. "You need to get something straight: _we are not friends_. I know my whole family wants us to gather around a camp fire and sing folk songs, but guess what? Just because we're all werewolves doesn't mean I have to like you."

Cora whirls around and stomps back through the car, slamming the door back to the rest of train behind her. Erica shuffles back into the bathroom and tries not to look at the mirror while she cries-- just a little.

 

\---

 

Allison was _supposed_ to ride in Kate's car and witness her hostile takeover of the seventh years' social standing, but on her way there, she's practically drop-tackled by Lydia.

"Allison! How are you? Oh, you won't _believe_ what happened to me this summer!" She's using that loud, I'm-excited-but-also-showing-off voice, and not a hair is out of place, and she looks a hundred times more put together than Allison has ever felt; Allison didn't know she'd missed her this much. She smiles and lets Lydia drag her down the train.

It takes her a car and a half to realize there being tailed by a skinny Hufflepuff who's looking at Lydia like she's Christmas in a birthday present or something.

"Uh, Lydia--" she keeps checking over her shoulder to see if he's still there, and yeah, there he is. "Um, I think someone's trying--"

"Don't worry about him," Lydia says primly, like she was answering a trivia question, and pulls her suddenly into an empty cabin. Allison half-falls into her seat while Lydia daintily arranges her skirt first. The boy shuffles around outside the door for a moment, like he might knock, but after a moment he slinks out of sight.

"So, is he new or..?" Allison asks, because she can't remember seeing him before this.

"No, he's in our year-- Miles, or something. He started following me around just before break." Lydia shrugs, like her admirer is a minor annoyance, but she's got a tilt to her lips that suggests she's really a little pleased. "I don't know what his deal is, I mean, he doesn't even _talk_ to me-- Anyway, you have to hear what happened at the beach!"

Allison honestly barely catches what is probably a dramatic account of Lydia's teenage-suitor-filled summer. She raises her eyebrows and smiles at the right moments, but she's really thinking about how soon she can get back to the front of the train-- Kate'll be furious she missed her "moment of triumph"-- without seeming rude.

She's nodding along while Lydia waxes poetic about some lifeguard's abdominal muscles when she sees Erica Reyes rush past the door, wiping furiously at her face. They lock eyes for a second and Allison can see that she'd been crying. Her stomach twists anxiously, because she knows she's never been very nice to Erica, had barely even spoke to her, because Kate had taken one look at her and called her a Social Leper and, honestly, because it was easier _not_ to. 

"Hey, are you alright?" Lydia asks (in a tone that suggests what she really means is 'Are you listening?').

"Yeah, yeah!" And off Lydia goes again, now on a tangent about how she engineered a sunscreen that let you control how tan you got. Allison wonders if being cunning is supposed to feel so much like being a coward.

 

\---

 

It's easier not to tell Laura about Cora's declaration of un-friendship. The two never seem to get along anyway, and Erica would really rather not think about it at all. So when Laura asks her why she doesn't see them hanging out one day as Erica's gathering her things, she just shrugs.

"Dunno. I guess she and her friends are always talking about class and stuff, it's just kinda boring. Ravenclaws, you know?" She shuffles her scrolls around in her bag so she doesn't have to meet Laura's eyes. The older girl hums, but doesn't say anything.

She sighs and stands up, looks back over at her House's table. There are the Argent girls at the center of a crowd of People To Know. Erica feels her lip curl-- silver spoons make her blood boil.

"Back to the salt mines," she mutters, and hopes someone will talk to her in Charms today.

 

\---

 

Laura clears out the upper years' dormitory one night, charms the beds into a rough semi circle around her own so the dozen or so girls in her "Inner Circle" can sprawl over the top bunks together and face her on her throne of pillows. Allison's the youngest by three years and feeling _really damn cool._

The older girls are clutching bottles of Firewhiskey and someone's rigged a record-player to work. Allison mouths along to the words and turns her head to see Laura's doing the same.

_More, gimme more, gimme more._

The not-so-unofficial Queen of Slytherin waits until the bottles are half-empty before she really starts to speak.

"The thing is," she starts, "The thing is, our beloved House is still buried beneath all that Great War bullshit." A few girls from the older, more notorious families, nod and mumble. It's no secret that green and silver are hard colors to rock in the wizarding world, even now. "And, I'm not afraid to say it-- the old folks' grudges were shit. Straight-up, tale-as-old-as-time, racial superiority idiocy. They were wrong and we've gotta make it right."

Allison has taken a couple of swigs, even though she's sure her mother would kill her. Kate's voice is doing what it's always done to her, pulled her into its sway. She's nodding along like she's one of the kids desperate for redemption for the sins of the past.

"Our real problems," Kate says, and now she's in full swing, she's knows they're all there to eat out of her hands, "Come from _real dangers_. People who are monsters because of the sickness they carry in their blood. We've got werewolves decimating families, infecting anyone who survives, and the Ministry _protects_ them."

The rumble through the room comes right on cue, because who hasn't seen a headline or two about just that? Who hasn't gotten swabbed at a routine check-up because they're "managing the outbreak"?

Allison thinks of her mom's tight voice scoffing over the dinner table, the arguments in her parents' bedroom. ("Are you going to protect those _innocent carriers_ when one of them catches Allison on a full moon, Chris?") But then she thinks of the sweet woman who pushes the trolley through the train, and how it's common knowledge among the students--though none of the professors ever bring it up-- that she's a werewolf.

It's like Kate reads her mind.

"Now, I get it, we've all met somebody who's not "like that," right? But think about it: how long until they are? You think those potions they hand out are a walk in the park? The scrolls of side effects weigh more than I do. And how many of them aren't going to see, at least once, what a real full moon feels like?"

No one's talking now, just waiting. Allison's head is swimming and she can't tell if it's the booze, or just her brain following Kate down this rabbit hole.

"So, riddle me this: Is there really such a thing as a safe werewolf?" 

 

\---

 

"I should've known," Allison whispers into the dark hotel room in Chelsea one night, and Erica was _this_ close to falling asleep. They've been trying to track down a boy who's reaction to the Bite has been decidedly homicidal. He's been working his way through old high school bullies and they need to find him, like, yesterday.

"Huh?" she grunts, and throws off her half of the sheets. She rolls over and sees Allison staring up at the ceiling, oh so still.

"Kate," she says, "I should've known what was gonna happen. It started back in Hogwarts." Erica can hear the frustration in her voice, tight like a fist. She tries to smile, tries to diffuse.

"Is that what you popular girls were up to? Werewolf annihilation?" She huffs a laugh she doesn't feel, because the Hale family was definitely worse off for Kate Argent. "I always thought it was all toe nail-painting and mean-spirited gossiping."

"God, _I was so stupid_." Allison groans and puts her hands to her face. Erica doesn't know what to say, knows that Allison wouldn't care that they were kids, that more couldn't have been asked of them. Instead she tries to wrap her arm around Allison's waist, tries to let her body say what her mouth can't. But Allison rolls over angrily, definitely throws her elbow a little.

Erica huffs and rolls over too, shuffles backward until their backs are pressed firmly together. She closes her eyes and reminds herself that you can't hunt down rabid twenty-something werewolves on no sleep.

 

\---

 

It is an obscenely hot afternoon in the greenhouse and Erica's sweaty and irritated and worried that she's going to have pit stains on her last clean shirt before lunch and _of course_ that's when the shakes come on. She doesn't get much warning, just a bit of a wet tang in her mouth, and then her forearm's flying out and knocking her quarter-of-your-grade potted plant off the work bench. She opens her mouth, most likely to swear because she's spent all summer watching age-inappropriate television, when Vernon Boyd snatches her Herbology grade from the jaws of Troll-dom. 

She locks eyes with him as her fingers dance erratically through the aftershocks and wonders why she's never really noticed him before. He's got such kind eyes, and he looks _right at her_ instead of through her, even though she's twitching all over the place and the half of the class that isn't laughing at her is pointedly looking away. Finally, she's still, and the only movements she makes are the one she wants to. 

Erica reaches out her hand, and he puts the pot and it's delicate, little green seedling into it. He smiles and she grimaces back, hasn't quite worked through the embarrassment for anything more lighthearted. He starts back to an empty table by some bright blue ferns, too small for anyone else to sit at and Erica realizes he hasn't said anything stupid or patronizing or I'm-sorry-your-defective-y and, well, she's latched on.

"Um!" she says, and winces because, _smooth_. Boyd stops mid-step and looks at her with an arched eyebrow, which is how she knows she's making the right decision. She has a deep appreciation for attitude.

"You could-- You could sit with me. You know, if you wanted to." Erica tries to act like this doesn't matter, like it's casual. Boyd looks at her some more, then walks away.

A casual observer might think she completely deflated; in actuality, you really do have to hunch like that to properly re-pack soil. It's definitely a thing. Erica was so pointedly not being rejected, Boyd almost gave her a heart attack when he dropped his bag on the workbench. 

They look at each other for a good few minutes without saying anything before Erica breaks her silent-and-cool streak.

"I hope you talk more than this." Boyd grins.

"Not usually."

"We're gonna have to work on that."

"I thought it made me _mysterious_." 

He's not exactly wrong. He's small and quiet and there are certainly more attention-grabbing Ravenclaws (Lydia Martin is one of those girls that was born pretty and will die pretty and will never know anything but prettiness in between, and Danny Mahealani has these _dimples_ ), so he kind of just blends into the background. But Erica's really tired of being lonely.

"Yeah, well," she says, "You don't have to be mysterious with me."

He's quiet for a long time and Erica's trying not to cringe. Not exactly an icebreaker.

"Fair enough," he says, and smiles at her. She smiles back, and she's so happy she feels like her heart's got the shakes.

'Oh God,' she think suddenly. 'I hope I don't stink.'

 

\---

 

Allison's waiting for Lydia outside the History of Magic classroom, practically bouncing. After the party, she'd been zipping through charms trying to get her iPod to work on school grounds (a resounding failure), but had figured out the next best thing. As soon Lydia walks out the door, Allison grabs her elbow and starts to pull her down the hall.

"You gotta check this out!" 

"Alright, alright, no need to wrinkle the shirt."

When they're safely in the third-floor bathroom that no one uses-- something about ghost rats-- before she pulls her current pride and joy out of her bag. Lydia is less than impressed.

"A CD?" she asks. "A No Doubt CD?"

"Oh, shut up and watch." A quick charm a couple years beyond her grade level and--

_Hey baby, hey baby._

Lydia screams in delight and Allison screams back and they jump up and down while No Doubt echoes across the tiles. They've got an hour for lunch and the dance party has officially begun.

Their books and bags are strewn across the floor and they are both decidedly sweaty when Erica bursts into the bathroom, and promptly freezes. Allison stops dancing too, feels awkward and vaguely-guilty like she usually does around Erica, but Lydia is qualm-less as usual.

"Do you _mind_?"

Erica glares for a second, opens her mouth as if to snap back, before she completely deflates. 'Like she remembers who she is,' Allison thinks, and feels even worse. Erica turns and leaves, carefully shutting the door. Lydia keeps dancing, busting a couple of moves that will probably be lethal in a few years. Allison leans back against the sink and waits for the pit in her stomach to disappear.

 

\---

 

"Spill," Laura says to her as soon as she sits down, fork pointed menacingly. "And I want details-- You held out on me for _this long_ and, just-- Tell me everything!"

Erica wants to crawl under the Gryffindor table and hide forever. Instead she buries her face in her arms.

"Will you keep it down!" 

"Why? Nobody's listening." Erica lifts her head and shoots a pointed look at Derek, who is face-deep in a plate of mashed potatoes. "Oh-- My brother doesn't give half a shit about whatever cutie you've got your eye on." Derek grunts and Erica wants a neon sign installed over his head that indicates whether he's talking to food or people.

Laura's eyebrows say 'See what I mean?'. The younger girl sighs and tries not to pick at a particularly painful whitehead on her chin. When Ms. Laura Hale's got her game face on, only fools resist.

Erica lets her eyes flick meaningful across the crowded Great Hall toward the end of the Hufflepuff table. Laura leans to get a better look, knits her brow. She starts to look deeper into the crowd and Erica taps the prefect's hand.

"No, he's there-- Next to the guy with the wonky jaw, with buzzed hair." Laura looks back, locks on. Her face is less than enthusiastic and the younger girl picks apart a roll.

"Really?" Erica shrugs and doesn't look at the girl that's got half the school drooling. She tells herself her feelings aren't hurt. She gets up, and tries to make herself stand as tall as she can-- no one in Gryffindor sniggers at her because Laura won't stand for that shit, but the rest of Hogwarts can be… unkind.

"Aw-- C'mon Erica, I didn't mean to hurt--"

"It's fine." It's not. She walks away, and Laura doesn't call out after her.

 

\---

 

See, there are things Erica can't say out loud, can't put into words.

How could she tell Laura about how Stiles-- lanky, spastic Stiles-- is everything she wants at almost-thirteen and desperate. How can she express how loyal and clever and funny he is without making it sound like some silly, juvenile crush? It won't matter to Laura that Stiles' favorite superhero is Batman, or that he spends hours in the library pouring over Potions books so he can help Scott study, or that his eyes light up when he talks about his father.

She can't tell anyone how he sits out by the lake sometimes, perfectly still, and the long line of his back is sad somehow. She can't describe how loud he gets when he talks about his post-Hogwarts plan to make his dad proud as an Auror. She doesn't know how to say that sometimes, after a really bad day, she wants to put her face against the soft cotton novelty shirts he likes to wear when he's not in class.

Erica doesn't know how to explain that she can see who Stiles is going to be moving around beneath his skin, and it's going to blow everyone away.

 

\---

 

Erica wakes up to an empty house and she can feel it's going to be a good day. (Sometimes she misses her parents; she forgets that when they're home they are often miserably hungover or, worse sober and angry. She stays in bed those days, curled around her toys and wishes they didn't spend so much time at the bars and the pubs and the jobs they can never hold on to.)

She goes downstairs and eats two bowls of Lucky Charms and watches all the good morning cartoons. Then, when their basic cable is hopelessly lost to the morning news and talk shows, she turns on the radio.

Erica loves to dance like only a seven year old can love anything. She presses the button-- _her_ button, she likes to think, because three are her dad's sports stations, and the other is a loop of songs that make her mom cry alone in the kitchen late at night-- for TODAY'S HOTTEST HITS and turns the volume knob as far as it'll go.

When the beat starts she squeals, jumps up on the couch and punches her hand into the air. Gwen Stefani starts to sing about how she "ain't no hollaback girl," and Erica doesn't know what it means, but she _does_ know that Gwen is cool and strong and probably doesn't curl up in a ball when her parents thunder into the house at three in the morning, screaming and breaking things.

The good days are when Erica doesn't miss anyone, and can imagine how much better things are going to be when she grows up.

 

\---

 

Allison trudges through the dungeons a solid fourty-five minutes after Kate was supposed to meet her outside the Great Hall. It's a toss up: either she's been blown off for bigger and better things, or Kate's pissed someone off and is currently dueling it out against half a dozen angry teenagers. Allison figures the odds are about thirty-seventy. She runs through some Defense Against spells in her head and pulls out her wand. Just in case.

But the halls are empty, quiet. Allison rolls her eyes. If Kate ran off to make out with that hot redhead Ravenclaw and made her miss lunch-- She decides to check out the Potions room, just in case. Maybe she'd misheard and she was supposed to meet Kate there.

She half-jogs into the class room, eyes scanning, and almost chokes on her tongue. Kate's sitting on Harris' desk back to her, Harris is sitting forward in his chair between her knees and his tie wrapped around her fist. For a second she just stands there, one foot still half-raised. Then Kate tugs Harris closer and spreads her knees wider and, absurdly, she hears her mother's voice in her head 'That certainly isn't lady-like.'

She starts, half-falls against the door frame and when Kate and Harris turn to stare at her all she can't remember how to speak.

"Gah," she says, and stumbles out and half-runs down the hallway.

 

\---

 

Kate finds her curled up in an armchair off to the side of the Common Room an hops up on the arm with this look on her face that Allison knows too well. It's that 'You're Too Young and Stupid to Understand' Look-- the one that usually means she's about to get pushed out of a room and sent to bed because she's just _silly little Allison_. She grinds her teeth and waits.

Kate sighs and looks down at her, searches her face.

"The thing is," Kate says and Allison huffs, because this is where she get's blown off.

"Hey!" Kate grabs her chin and looks her dead in the eye. "The thing is we've got to use whatever we have at our disposal, Allison. Anything and everything is a weapon."

She wedges herself down into the armchair so their smushed together and Kate turns her head, their noses almost brushing.

"See, Harris is a straight-up perv," and she's smiling a little, laughter sparkling in her eyes. "And I look fucking _hot_ in this skirt."

Allison gapes at her and Kate sighs, leans her head back.

"What? I couldn't get a Dreadful on that Potions assignment."

 

\---

 

Having Boyd is like wearing armor. Even thinking of him makes her feel surer, stronger. It doesn't matter that people make kissing noises at them, snicker at the two loner lovebirds. The thing is: they don't get it. They don't understand that damaged people find something special in each other.

The first time she tosses back a dose in front of him, Erica feels like she's stripped down and stood naked before him. He looks at her, and maybe it's just what she wants to believe, but his eyes seem to say 'It's ok.'

She slips the empty vial back into her bag and picks at her skirt. It's not quite dusk and they're sitting up on the Astronomy Tower even though class isn't for another few hours. Boyd reaches over and takes her hand, interlaces their fingers.

Erica thinks of how her parents haven't been able to really look at her for years, even after the Fairly-Decent Magical Band Aid. And here's Boyd, who doesn't even need to ask her any questions. She turns her head and glares at the sun until it makes sense that her eyes are wet.

 

\---

 

As a rule, Erica isn't excited for any class Boyd isn't in. There's nothing fun about being stuck with no partner for activities--or worse, watching as the professor drags over someone who looks like they'd rather eat slugs than work with her-- or not having somebody to talk to while people whisper about her. 

Even class with the Hufflepuffs isn't an entirely appealing option. Her crush on Stiles has escalated to the point where she can't be within ten feet of him without flushing a bright pink and losing the ability to use words. It's horrifying and ridiculous and _she didn't sign up for this, ok_.

So, when the Slytherin second years are paired with Hufflepuff for Flying Lessons, it is really just her luck. Still, the prospect of imminent embarrassment in front of Stiles and half of her year doesn't dull the excitement about finally riding a broomstick. It's basically a childhood dream come true. Exams are over, the weather is perfect and she is going to _fly_.

They meet in the Quidditch stadium ("Some Gryffindor brained himself against the castle wall a few years ago," someone toward the front of the crowd of students explains, "apparently he's the reason we had to wait 'til second year."), and everyone's practically jogging because there's magic and then there's _flying_. Erica's at the back of the crowd, the only Slytherin among the last few Hufflepuff stragglers, one of whom is, naturally, Stiles.

He and McCall jostle each other excitedly, and yeah, alright, she's definitely hardcore watching them. 

"Dude!" Scott is such an aggressively good person (he spent a good ten minutes helping her gather her things after a couple of Ravenclaw fourth years threw her bag down one of the staircases last month), that you forgive him his asymmetrical face and occasional slowness. He's so excited he's been literally bouncing for the past ten minutes.

"Dude! We totally have to train this summer so we can try out for the tea-- Oh! And get jobs, definitely get jobs, so we can get brooms-- My dad said he'd cover half if I kept my grades up-- Wait, can Muggle kids work? Doesn't matter, you can come and work with me!" Stiles talks so fast his words blend together and his hands are everywhere and Erica likes him _so much_.

Next thing she knows, the crowd has stopped moving, and she can see slivers of Finstock in the gaps between everyone in front of her. He looks like he's been standing in a wind tunnel, hair blasted up and back, and eyes just a little top wide.

"Alright!" Finstock yells, "Flying is serious business, ladies and gentlemen! I don't' care how many hours you have on a broomstick, this is _not child's play_. Don't you snicker at me Greenberg, I'll have you cleaning out this stadium until you graduate!"

Erica cranes her neck to scope out the unfortunate Hufflepuff who drew Finstock's ire-- there were no Slytherins with that name-- while everyone snickers. She almost feels bad for him; it was one thing to be bullied by another student, but being called out by a teacher had to blow.

"Everyone grab a broom and we'll get started." Everyone rushes to the line of waiting broomsticks even though there are obviously enough for all of them--Jackson Whittemore elbows some guy in the stomach because they were going for the same one, and that's Jackson for you. Erica waits it out and that's when Finstock spots her.

"Not you Reyes!" She starts and meets his eyes. He's giving her a pointed look and she can't figure it out-- what had she done wrong? Now he's using his eyebrows, like she should know what he means and everyone's starting to stare.

"Your _mother_ sent an owl" he says pointedly, "asking that you be _exempted_."

That's impossible. Neither of her parents had any idea how to contact her-- had no real interest either, they pretended she went to some far-away boarding school and pretty much left it at that. If it hadn't had been for the school's Muggleborn Werewolf Scholarship Program (or whatever it was that paid for her school supplies) and Laura's help, she'd never have any contact with the Wizarding World. Her parents certainly had no interest in it-- or her, really, since they'd found out she was a witch.

The other students were starting to snicker, she hears someone whisper "Spazzy freak" and _oh_.

She'd been blushing before, but now she feels like she's glowing with shame. The shakes. Stiles and McCall are looking at her sympathetically and she wants to disappear. It's easier to look at Allison Argent pointedly _not_ look at her.

"Ok," she mutters, because Finstock's still looking at her and she just wants to be dismissed so she can go back to the dormitory and draw her curtains and cry. But it turns out life really likes to kick her when she's down.

"Go sit over there," Finstock gestures toward the stadium entrance, "and, uh, take notes on the proper technique-- Stop laughing, Greenberg, or I'll make you run laps around this place!" He whirls around, apparently done with her, and shouts at someone to the left side of the line of students. Erica doesn't wait to see who it is, just trudges over to where she'd been directed.

The thing is, they'd been told not to bring "anything but themselves and comfortable robes," so she _can't_ take notes, but she doubts Finstock cares. It was busy work to get her out of the way as inconspicuously as possible. Instead, she gets to watch everyone else fly.

Jackson, of course, is amazing on a broomstick. He can turn on a dime, flies laps around everyone else, even scares a couple Slytherin girls right off their brooms when he mock-charges them before zipping straight up. Allison is almost as good, might even be faster, if not quite as bold, but she mostly hovers in place and talks with a few adoring girls who weren't part of the Argent Elite. It's almost painful to look at them, so Erica spends most of her time watching Stiles.

Even through crush-colored glasses, he's really not very good on a broomstick. Him and Scott bumble along, half-slipping off and barely able to complete even the most basic exercises Finstock throws at them. They almost crash into each other twice, and Stiles actually _does_ collide headfirst with a Hufflepuff who was minding her own business twenty feet away before he seems to lose control of the broom. Erica almost gets up when he hits the ground she's so nervous--for a second, she even forgets to be miserable-- but he's already picking himself up by the time Finstock hustles over, shouting for Greenberg to get out of the way, even though no one but McCall seemed interested in the accident at all.

Actually, no one seems interested in anything but flying, and Finstock has his back to her, yelling something about evasion maneuvers, and Erica makes a split-second decision to bail. No one notices, and once she's outside she runs as fast as she can for the castle. She doesn't care that her arms are flapping everywhere, or that her shirt's come untucked; she doesn't care about anything.

All she can think is that flying is just one more thing the Bite has taken from her.

 

\---

 

The club is so hot Allison thinks she might faint. Erica went to grab drinks from the bar fifteen minutes ago and if she feels _one more hand_ on her waist she is going to claw someone's eyes out. So far, the celebratory night out was just making her miserable.

Rationally, she knows she shouldn't be. Erica had yielded to reason and let her do all the talking ("I missed out on the Slimy Slytherin Double-Talk Seminar first year, so it only makes sense"), and it looked like the Japanese Ministry was on board with their proposal. The _Plan for the Integration of Lycanthropes_ _in Modern Wizarding Society_ was well on its way to being an international standard, and their track record with "problem werewolves" was enough to make even the most prejudiced wizard stall. Back in Europe, Lydia's potions think tank had finalized a new Quasi-Cure formula with a fraction of the side effects of the original, and Laura had expanded her group of Natural Lycanthropy coaches two hundred percent.

Honestly, life was good, and once Erica got back--

" _Jaegerbombs_!" They would get drunk, apparently. 

Erica emerges from the crowd with hands in the air, the tumblers in her fists sparkling in the flashing lights, the liquor and Red Bull lighting up invitingly.

"I thought we were starting slow!" Allison shouts into Erica's mane of hair once she gets close enough to hear. Erica gestures dismissively, splashing a guy nearby who was eyeing her.

"Go big or go home!" She thrusts a tumbler into Allison's hand, catches her eye and starts to mouth a countdown, '3-2-1.' They bump glasses, lift up the shot glasses of Red Bull and chug. 

Erica whoops, grabs the tumblers and thrusts them at someone who definitely _didn't_ work at the club, but was sufficiently drunk to take responsibility for them. Allison presses the back of her hand to her mouth and wills the drink to go down. It's a close call.

A new song starts up and the strobe lights match the rhythm. Erica grabs her wrist and pulls her close and they shout along to the lyrics and, okay, the Jaeger hit _hard_. 

_Look at your watch now, you're still a super hot female._

They grin at each other, and Allison thinks it's more than just the liquor that makes her feel lit up from the inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why Gwen Stefani/No Doubt's discography was so necessary this chapter, my brain just kind of latched on.
> 
> Also, Isaac and the-bite-is-a-gift!Hales next chapter :)


End file.
